Field
Aspects of the present invention generally relate to a communication technique.
Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there have been known mobile terminals that can use near field wireless communication such as Near Field Communication (NFC), Infrared Data Association (IrDA), and TransferJet®. The near field wireless communication allows users to perform data transmission and reception between apparatuses only by performing an operation of bringing the apparatuses close to each other. Further, there is a technique for conducting a handover from such near field wireless communication to a different wireless communication method such as a wireless local area network (LAN) (the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 series) and Bluetooth®. The handover refers to an operation of switching connection from communication via a first communication path based on a first communication method to communication via a second communication path based on a second communication method.
Further, there is a technique called a direct print service, by which a mobile terminal directly transmits document/image data to a printer via the wireless communication after the handover, thereby causing the printer to print the transmitted data (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2014-195980).
On the other hand, there is a cloud computing service called a Software as a Service (SaaS) that discloses software on the Internet. The cloud refers to an area where a server group is set up on a network. Under a cloud computing environment, the users can use computer processing performed by the server group as a service via the network. One example of this SaaS is a service called a cloud print service, by which a mobile terminal such as a smartphone serving as a client apparatus transmits, via the cloud, document/image data to a printer connected to the network, thereby causing the printer to print the transmitted data (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-133877).
Conventionally, the execution of the direct print service has been able to be triggered by the establishment of the near field wireless communication between the mobile terminal and the printer, as in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2014-195980 described above. However, no consideration has been given to allowing the execution of the cloud print service to be triggered by the establishment of the near field wireless communication.